Adding a Red Sea stay to your Egypt trip: Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh or Marsa Alam

Which Red Sea area is the easiest to add to a Nile trip?

Hurghada is the easiest, because it is the one you can reach from Luxor by road in a morning. Wikivoyage gives about 4 to 5 hours by bus from Luxor or Qena. Sharm El Sheikh and Marsa Alam each need more planning.

Read the size, reef and airport lines as a guide and not a ranking.

How do you get from Luxor to the Red Sea?

By road to Hurghada or Marsa Alam, and by air through Cairo to Sharm El Sheikh. The table shows each leg with the figure and its source.

Wikipedia’s airport pages list a Luxor service for both Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada, and Hurghada’s is marked seasonal, so check the current timetable before you plan around a direct flight. Wikivoyage suggests a private long-distance taxi shared by two or three people for the Luxor to Hurghada run, and warns that you will pass checkpoints on the Sharm road, so keep your passport handy.

We found no public timetable for a bus from Luxor to Marsa Alam, so plan it as a private transfer and ask the planner for the written time.

What if the Nile cruise ends in Aswan?

Then ask for the flight combination to be priced, because the road from Aswan to the coast is long and we found no sourced figure for it. Wikivoyage lists a bus from Aswan to Hurghada of about 8 hours or more, but its figures are dated 2012, so we do not rely on them. A flight through Cairo is the other option, and domestic flights run frequently from Cairo to Hurghada according to the same page.

Compare the flight combination with a transfer from Luxor by road, and leave a buffer before any international departure.

What is Hurghada like?

It is a large resort city, and the widest choice of the three. Wikipedia gives it 214,247 people in 2023, officially established in 1905 after Ababda fishermen settled a natural harbour, and a coast about 36 km long. Its main districts are El Dahar, El Saqqala (Sekalla) and El Ahyaa. Sekalla is the oldest part and the busiest centre, while El Mamsha holds many newer hotels, restaurants and shops. El Gouna is a separate resort town about 25 km north.

Offshore, the Giftun Islands are a protected area, and a beachfront camp on Giftun is about 45 minutes by boat. Wikipedia lists dive sites near Giftun, Abu Ramada and Fanadir, including the wrecks El Mina and Rosalie Moller. It also cites a study saying reefs here have declined by half in three decades, from oil spills, pollution, sewage and dredging. That is one study cited on a secondary source. It is a reason to choose boat trips to protected areas and not to assume every beach reef is healthy.

For children, Wikipedia lists an aquarium (opened 2015, the largest in Egypt), a museum with about 2,000 artefacts, and a water park.

Hurghada has the strongest air links of the three. Wikipedia calls its airport Egypt’s second busiest and records 9,636,689 passengers in 2024, with international flights from Europe, the Gulf states and the Far East listed on Wikivoyage.

What is Sharm El Sheikh like?

It is a smaller, more contained resort city at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. Wikipedia gives it about 77,000 residents (2017) and over 3 million visitors in the metro area in 2024. Naama Bay is the central area, with many international hotels and restaurants, and the metro area also includes Hay el Nour, Hadaba, Montazah and Shark’s Bay. The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency lists Nabq as a protected area declared in 1992 and covering 518 km², and Wikipedia describes its mangroves, coral reefs and dunes.

Wikipedia names Shark Reef, a vertical wall descending to over 800 m, and Yolanda Reef as dive sites at Ras Mohammed National Park, and four reefs in the Straits of Tiran: Gordan, Thomas, Woodhouse and Jackson. Snorkelling is popular alongside diving, windsurfing and kitesurfing. The article gives no distance from the city to Ras Mohammed, so check the transfer time before you book a day there.

Wikipedia’s airport entry lists domestic flights from Sharm to Cairo, Luxor, Hurghada and Alexandria, though it flags the list as partial. Sharm is the third largest airport in Egypt, per the city page. Wikivoyage adds that taxis from the airport can be expensive, so agree the fare or pre-book the transfer.

What is Marsa Alam like?

It is the smallest of the three, and the least connected. Wikipedia describes a hot desert town on the western shore of the Red Sea, about 274 km south of Hurghada, with development beginning in 1995 and an international airport opened in 2003. Wikivoyage counts about 9,000 residents in 2021, says almost everything can be reached on foot and places the airport about 60 km north-west of the town.

The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency lists Wadi El-Gemal – Hamata as a national park in the Red Sea governorate, declared in 2003 and covering 7,636.7 km². Experience Egypt describes Marsa Alam as a place of white sandy beaches, ancient mangrove forests and dolphins, with Abu Dabbab, the dugong. Plan for a good swim, and treat any animal sighting as a bonus.

Wikivoyage lists service taxis from Marsa Alam to Hurghada and Edfu, and several daily buses on the Cairo run via Hurghada. We found no sourced journey time for the Hurghada to Marsa Alam transfer, so ask for it in writing.

What does the sea temperature do through the year?

It stays swimmable all year, and it varies by about 6 degrees. Wikipedia gives average sea temperatures for Sharm El Sheikh by month (the air column in the table is from the WMO World Weather Information Service, Egyptian Meteorological Authority, 1981 to 2010), with February’s 22.4 °C as the low and August’s 28.8 °C as the high. For Hurghada it gives about 21 °C in February and March and 28 °C in August.

Marsa Alam’s sea ranges from 22 to 29 °C across the year, per Wikipedia, with daily highs of about 24 °C in January and 36 °C in August. The southern Red Sea is warmer in summer, at around 30 °C against 26 °C in the north, according to the Red Sea article on Wikipedia.

When is the snorkelling and diving season?

All three allow it year-round, and the water temperature is the main thing that changes. The table keeps each claim next to its source.

Wikivoyage warns that Hurghada can feel cold when the Shamal wind blows from the north-east, that late March can be windy, and that a wetsuit may be needed when the water is cool. The Red Sea holds more than 1,200 fish species, according to Wikipedia. Nile cruises run mainly in the same October to April period, so a cruise followed by a beach week fits one season. Our guide to when to visit Egypt covers the weather for the whole country.

How many nights should you add?

Add enough that the transfer is not most of the stay. A Luxor to Hurghada road trip takes about half a day, and the Marsa Alam road takes more than four hours, so a one-night stop spends a large share of the time travelling. Three or more nights make sense for most routes. That is our arithmetic from the transfer times, not a figure from a source.

An ordered way to plan it:

1. Decide the end point of the Nile trip, Luxor or Aswan.
2. Pick the area from the table: Hurghada for road access, Sharm for calm water and reefs, Marsa Alam for quiet.
3. Check the transfer by road or by Cairo flight against your last night on the ship.
4. Choose the month using the sea temperature table above.
5. Leave a buffer before any international departure.

What health and practical points apply on the coast?

Read the official advice for your passport before you book. The UK FCDO page, last updated 27 October 2026 and shown as current at 28 October, advises against all but essential travel to northern South Sinai beyond the St Catherine to Nuweiba road, except coastal areas on the west and east of the peninsula. It does not name the resorts, so read the page for your own country before you book.

The US CDC says the Red Sea poses no schistosomiasis risk, unlike the Nile and irrigation canals, so the swim at the end of a Nile trip is the safer one on that count. The FCDO also says not to drive outside main cities and resorts at night. Choose daytime transfers.

Sun is the practical risk on a beach week. Wikipedia gives Sharm El Sheikh a mean of 3,804 hours of sunshine a year, and the WMO service lists its August mean daily maximum at 38.8 °C, while the Red Sea itself runs from 21 to 28 °C (Wikipedia). Hurghada’s mean daily maximum reaches 35.1 °C in August in the table above. Pack a hat, a long-sleeved rash vest and sun protection for snorkelling.

Which area suits which traveller?

Match the area to who is travelling and how much transfer time they will accept.

A ready route that combines Cairo, a Nile cruise and the Red Sea is our 11-day Cairo, Nile cruise and Red Sea tour. You can compare the options on the tour packages page and the Nile cruises page, or send your dates through the trip planning form.